The overall goal of the proposed study is to increase understanding of how assisted living facilities (ALFs) can create an environment that maximizes job satisfaction and retention of direct-care staff. The specific aims are: 1) to understand how social relationships in the work place affect job satisfaction and retention of direct-care staff in ALFs; and 2) to understand how individual, job, and workplace factors influence the development and maintenance of social relationships of direct-care staff in ALFs. Qualitative methods will be used to study two assisted living facilities in the metro Atlanta area. The proposed research sites are a 36-bed non-profit facility and a 90-bed for-profit facility with a special care dementia unit. Data collection will extend over a 6-month period and will consist of in-depth interviews, informal interviewing, and participant observation. In-depth interviews will be conducted with approximately 40 direct-care staff and with 2 administrators (the person responsible for management of care staff in each home). Care staff will be selected purposively to represent variation in personal characteristics (race and age), length of employment, shift, full- and part-time status, and job content (assisted living vs. special care unit). Observations and informal interviewing of care staff will take place during bi-weekly visits to each home over the 6-month data collection period. All in-depth interviews will be tape-recorded and transcribed. Data will be analyzed using a grounded theory approach. The proposed study will provide the first comprehensive, in-depth information about the viewpoints and experiences of direct-care staff in ALFs. It will offer valuable insights to long-term care researchers, policy-makers, and service providers by illuminating the role of work-place relationships in job satisfaction and retention of direct-care staff in this setting. The study also will improve understanding of the overall experience of direct-care workers in ALFs and of how best to conduct research with these workers. Based on these findings, we plan to submit an R01 proposal to conduct a statewide study investigating more broadly the individual, sociocultural, and environmental factors that influence job satisfaction and retention and the relationship between these variables in this setting.